


the luck of the universe

by themorninglark



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Going to university, M/M, New Year, Omikuji
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 20:50:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5600365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/pseuds/themorninglark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you feel lucky, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa whispers.</p><p>Ahead of them, a bell tolls. Hands clap together in prayer.</p><p>Iwaizumi doesn't turn around.</p><p>"I know I am," he says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the luck of the universe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tookumade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tookumade/gifts).



> dear tookumade: thank you for being a pinch hitter for the HQHols Winter Exchange 2015!  
> I was taken by your prompt of something poetic/symbolic for iwaoi, and in the spirit of New Year, this... happened. I'm sorry it came so late, but I hope you like it.

**12:00**

On the stroke of midnight, Oikawa Tooru is asleep in his bed because he does not believe in rituals.

On the stroke of midnight, Iwaizumi Hajime stands under the gold-leaved lacquer roof of Osaki Hachimangu shrine, listening to the last of the 108 bells fade away. The sound makes an echo in his bones.

He takes a shallow, hurried breath, and unrolls two _omikuji._

 

 

**12:01**

Oikawa's eyes fly open.

One minute into the New Year, it seems awfully like the previous one.

(He's always been impatient for change, too impatient with the world, with _himself_ most of all -

 

 

**12:05**

Iwaizumi looks up.

The moon is distant, the lanterns closer, brighter, swaying red in the winter breeze. He is alone in the crowd. He has lost Hanamaki, somewhere along the way. The press of people is close and suffocating. Had his hands not been curled into fists, had he not been preoccupied, as it were, with erasing a future sketched out in strokes of black ink, he could have reached out and touched anyone he wanted.

His tread feels clumsy, heavy on the snowy ground. Not snow so much as slush, now.

The shadow of the tree seems to darken as he draws near.

He reaches out, and ties one of the _omikuji_ papers around a bare branch. It's cold to the touch.

 

 

**12:07**

\- but his disruption only lasts as long as it takes to shut out the noise again

and his razor sharp focus is his best weapon and worst enemy)

 

 

**12:10**

In the dark of his bedroom, Oikawa's habitual insomnia gets the better of him.

He sits up straight. He does not turn on the light. He does not need it.

He switches on his computer, and presses _play_ on an old DVD.

 

 

**01:31**

The hours go by awfully slowly.

 

 

 

**_direction: west_ **

"You look like shit."

Oikawa sticks out his tongue. The tang of citrus pricks his senses; _mikan_ and _yuzu_ , and en route to swiping a slice of freshly cut orange from the tray on Iwaizumi's table, he deliberately, obnoxiously kicks the door shut behind him.

"Good morning to you too, Iwa-chan."

Over the stack of textbooks by his arm, Iwaizumi glowers. He squints at Oikawa, like he's trying to see behind the lenses, gauge how bad his eye rings are today.

"Couldn't sleep again?" he asks.

And Oikawa says, "Sleep is for the weak."

His declaration is breezy, breezy as his smile is bright. The bravado comes with the territory, now, unsought, and fooling no one at all, and to distract his disdainful observer, he sits down carelessly so that their knees bump.

Iwaizumi shoves him back. "The table has four sides, asshole - "

"I like facing this direction," says Oikawa. "I don't look good with backlight."

 

 

 

Somewhere in the distance, there's the soft sound of paper rustling on the wind.

Beneath the midday glare, a shrine attendant sweeps up the last of the fallen twigs.

 

 

 

**_travel: good_**

Iwaizumi's backpack is stuffed with brochures.

_Have you thought about -_

And there, spending the last of his brief, fleeting daylight hours in the school counsellor's office, he had dared to say out loud what he had not dared to tell his stupid, brilliant best friend.

_Yes._

He had thought about it. He had thought about it, because he was not Oikawa Tooru, four-time Best Setter Award winner of Miyagi Prefecture. He would not have universities beating down his door with offers. If there was a path he wanted to walk, he'd have to figure it out now or never.

He draws his coat tight around himself, and blows into his cupped hands for warmth. It's getting dark, street lights blinking into life with a staticky hum. Dust motes hang, suspended, in the still air.

He is walking home alone today. His appointment had stretched on for longer than he had anticipated. There's an unread message on his phone.

 

> _Iwa-chan? are you done_
> 
> _i'm not gonna wait for you. SLOWPOKE_

In his wallet, a rolled up piece of paper weighs heavy with portent.

 

 

 

**_dai-kichi (great luck)_ **

"Count me ou- _ut_ ," sings Oikawa, tearing himself away from the group.

Through heavy-lidded eyes, Matsukawa shoots him a look of utmost reproach.

Oikawa yawns, looks away. Says, airily, "I don't believe in things like this."

That's when Iwaizumi steps in and grabs his wrist, yanks him to the front of the shrine without preamble, amidst undignified yelps of protest. "It's tradition, you dumbass. Just play along."

And that's when Oikawa's gloved fingers close, unthinking, around the heel of Iwaizumi's palm and the scratchy woollen fabric of his coat sleeve; it occurs to him that here on the eve of their final examinations, there are probably many better places they could be.

 

They could be studying, for one.  
They could be sneaking into the gym for one last toss, one last spike.  
They could be in Iwaizumi's bedroom, unwinding over Mario Kart. Oikawa never wins, but he gets to whine a lot about it.

They could be in Oikawa's bedroom, resolutely pretending that Iwaizumi had not said what he'd said last night.

 

 

"Do you feel lucky, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa whispers.

Ahead of them, a bell tolls. Hands clap together in prayer.

Iwaizumi doesn't turn around.

"I know I am," he says.

 

 

This is their last trial by fire, together.

And Oikawa, with one last lingering touch on Iwaizumi's wrist, steps away, pulls back; because he will be damned before he leaves something as important as that up to the vagaries of _fate_ , to gods that are cruel and reckless, and fuck it, maybe he's _already_ damned, but -

At least it will be a damnation of his own making. Nothing else.

 

 

 

**_examinations: very good_ **

_"Hey, Oikawa. I sent in my university applications yesterday."_

_"Oh? Where?"_

_"…Osaka, and Kyoto. Not Tokyo."_

 

 

Their promises, that night, had been heated and then suddenly, chillingly, quiet.

Iwaizumi's silence was a thing of normalcy, comfortable, even, when it settled into their shared space; Oikawa's was rare, and terrifying.

But there had been promises, and they had not come this far to give them up.

 

They sit on Oikawa's rumpled futon after school, and on Iwaizumi's terse count of _one, two, three,_ they tear open their official-looking envelopes at exactly the same time.

 

 

(on a tree in a courtyard, slowly warming, a knotted slip of paper trembles - )

 

"I got in," says Oikawa.

Iwaizumi's hands fall to his lap.

"Me too," he says.

 

 

 

**_han-kyo (half bad luck)_ **

The cherry blossoms are out in full bloom by the time Oikawa leaves.

Iwaizumi stands in the archway of the station, just shy of the platform. He clears his throat. Looks out at the tracks, at the milling crowds, and then, finally, at Oikawa.

"You know, on New Year's Day, I went to the shrine," Iwaizumi starts.

Oikawa raises an elegant eyebrow and crosses his arms, waiting for Iwaizumi to continue. He's dressed for travel, with his glasses and new sneakers, and he's still wearing his Seijou sports jacket, because, he'd told his mother, it was the most comfortable jacket he had anyway.

(He had not been able to elucidate the real reasons, the way he felt when he put it on, like a second skin - )

"And I took an _omikuji_ for you, because I knew you wouldn't take one for yourself."

 _Silly,_ Oikawa wants to say. His fingers twitch in his pockets. He wants to reach out, to clasp those hands in his, because it's just like Iwaizumi to think that he could have shaped a future for Oikawa with the rough honesty of his touch, and as Oikawa smiles, it occurs to him that he will not have anyone to smile this smile to, for a while.

He doesn't believe in rituals, but he'll make an exception, this once. 

"So? What do the gods have in store for me this year, then?"

"Half bad luck," says Iwaizumi flatly.

"Seriously? Oh, come _on_ ," Oikawa protests. "You couldn't pick a better one for me? Iwa-chan, I'm _upset_."

Iwaizumi scowls at him. "I tied it to a tree, _okay_? But, look - I wanted to tell you, before you leave - that I think, somehow, it doesn't matter for you. It doesn't matter what kind of _luck_ you're supposed to get. You're going to go out there and kick fortune in the butt anyway. Because you're such an asshole."

Oikawa, taken aback, bursts out laughing.

It's like a weight flying off his chest. He feels it bubble up from inside him like champagne, and suddenly, he's lighter than air; he could soar as high as the sun and let its rays in, refracted, rainbow-like, through the twisted, distempered glass of his heart, because there's someone who loves it, messed up and all -

"What did _you_ get, Iwa-chan?"

Iwaizumi reaches into his wallet and pulls out a tiny scroll. He unrolls it, holds it to Oikawa so it's facing him. It is crinkled, now, creased from months of living in Iwaizumi's back pocket, but the words are still clear and legible. 

 

 

> _great luck_

 

"Well," says Oikawa, lightly, "I guess some fortunes come true."

"It's not _all_ good. Look, there's this part where it says - "

 

 

 

**_the person you are waiting for will not come._ **

 

(he's already here.)

 

 

  

And Oikawa reserves the next and very last of his sincere smiles to say, _we'll meet again._

 

Iwaizumi doesn't have to tell him he knows that already.

 

 

 

From the budding branch of a tree, a piece of crumbling paper breaks, and drifts away.

 


End file.
